probably a bit too honest, but such is life.

I haven't decided if I'm going to post this yet, but knowing me, it'll probably be most useful to do so.

This is not a blog post designed to get pity - that is the last thing I want. 

Having read a wonderful blog by a Cambridge student (trust the top university in the UK to get it right), I wanted to follow suit - and talk about the bits of year abroad that nobody really wants to admit to.

Whilst I accept for some, admittedly very lucky, year abroad students, this blog post will be perfectly irrelevant. Having discussed it, however, with many friends, I know that for a lot of people it won't be. And that's why I felt someone should finally just 'fess up - 

This isn't as fun as it's supposed to be.

I will be the first to admit I have had some incredible times already this year - I've met some wonderful people, visited some fantastic places, and experienced highs probably higher than ever (just to clarify, I'm not on drugs - before my grandma's start to worry: I simply mean feelings). 

However, there have been some real lows, and being the bottler-upper (is that correct? it should be, if it isn't) that I am, I didn't really want to accept them. 

Admitting to not having an absolutely incredible time 24/7 automatically means people will think you're sitting hitting your head off the wall in a darkened room watching endless amounts of Doctor Who - and whilst the DW aspect may be worryingly accurate, the rest is far from reality. 

The thing about year abroad is that it's a complete mix - it's truly the highest of the highs  and the lowest of the lows, and this tends to mess with your head a bit. You can be floating about after the most amazing experience and all of a sudden you're plunged back into mundane reality of being 3000 miles from home (and feeling every last bit of it), and the contrast gets to you. 

In the Cambridge student's blog that I mentioned, she said this one thing that I completely understood.

"I think I'm doing Year Abroad wrong"

Thousands of photos of your friends on their year abroad plastered all over Facebook - everyone smashed at Oktoberfest, sweet little picnics by the Eiffel tower, German Christmas markets, Spanish beaches & football games - jealousy and confusion sets in. 

How come they're having that much fun? I feel like crap - I'm doing this wrong.

Having had a few days of really incredibly bad homesickness, I've had to talk myself up (as well as having a few helping hands talk me up too [or mouths, hands don't talk]), and the thing is, everything looks class on Facebook. No one is going to post photos or write statuses of the day that kid told them to f*** off, or the day that teacher was so mean that they cried - these are fictional events by the way, I'm not speaking from personal experience. But still - the only thing you can see is the good stuff - and when you're at a low point, it's hard to remember all the stuff you do that's good too.

But even knowing this, knowing that everybody goes through the highs and lows (whether or not it's to the same extent), I know that doesn't alter the fact that lows feel absolutely crap. A few days ago, I felt probably the lowest I ever have done. I could feel every single one of those 3000 miles to Newcastle upon Tyne, and every single one of them hurt. The stuff that bugs me about work, that I usually complain about but manage to stick a smile on by the time I get there, got me down. I felt sick, at times I thought I was going to actually be sick, I was incredibly teary and I felt like there was no way in hell I could get through a school day. 

I took a day.

I spoke to a lot of people.

A lot of people told me to go home.

I feel like for most of these people, they thought that this "low" was not just a thing that happened a couple of times, they thought it was how I felt every single day, which is partly why I'm writing this. I don't want to belittle their advice, because in all honesty it was good advice, and it's advice which has got me through to two days later with a bit more of a smile on my face. But that's not how I feel every day - this was just a particularly bad spell. 

So I took what everybody said to me on board, and I wrote an email to the person in charge of me at work. By that point, I had passed the simple point of sadness and gone onto that determined resolve to do anything to get out of it. I was absolutely blunt to the point almost of being rude: I confessed how homesick I was; how much I disliked the system at school; the fact I felt like an object being passed around rather than a human; I even admitted how upset I'd been at some of the teachers' reactions to me, including the incident of a teacher laughing at me and closing the door in my face. And I didn't give a damn - it was time to be honest, otherwise I was getting on that flight in 3 weeks time and I sure as hell wasn't getting on one back. 

My teacher replied pretty quickly - with a plan of action. Whilst I'm still not sure whether things will work out, I made the move I had to make. It was probably the first time I felt in control not just that day, but in terms of work, for the whole 3 months I've been there - I finally felt I had a say. 

It's been two days since the whole emotional wreck incident occurred - things are being discussed at school and I'm waiting to see what they have in mind. Whilst I'm not feeling incredible yet, I am feeling better - I'm able to eat real food again, and I'm feeling a lot more cheerful about the times ahead. I will be honest and say I'm still doubting whether I can stick this out until June next year, but I have learnt a lot about the lows- things I'm hoping will get me through any more tough times.

I know I'm not doing my year abroad wrong now. I don't give a damn what universities say, the point in a year abroad is to grow and develop as a person, screw the language side of it, and I genuinely believe I am. I still can't cook (but who needs to when sushi is so readily available?!) but I really think this week was a breakthrough moment. 

What may seem strange to people who know me, and who know I love the sound of my own voice, is that I have always been scared to speak up. I don't like to make complaints (not official ones, anyway); I don't even like phonecalls; I am terrified to speak in my own language to people I don't know, never mind in a different language; I avoid staff in shops because I don't know what to say to them; I'd rather search for three hours for a dress in my size than ask the shop assistant if they have it. This week taught me that sometimes I have to speak up - nobody has any idea how you're feeling or what you need and, unless you damn well tell them, they aren't going to change it. 

So yes, I'm still not sure if I'll last my time out in Canada - but I'm prepared to give it a really good try. I know that I'm still going to have lows, and that sometimes they'll feel almost inescapable, but if it's partly due to something I can try and sort out, then I'm going to force myself to do it.

So to finish, I swear down that if I'm inundated with messages from people saying "omg babe u kk? just read ur blog", I will personally hunt them down and torture them with endless hours of Doctor Who trivia (or something equally dull for you muggles [truly outgeeking myself here]). I've had the hugs, the support and the sympathy that I needed - and I genuinely don't want anymore. The next time I feel like this (and given the nature of year abroad, I feel sure there will be a next time, though hopefully not quite so dramatic), all I want is someone to say "Hannah, remember what you wrote. If there's something you can change, go change it." If I can't change it, and maybe someday that will be the case, then fair enough; but I'm not giving this up without a fight - the good times are too good not to fight for.

And finally, I hate to blag your heads with a little bit more about a certain timelord, but I really think this quote kind of sums up what I, and maybe some other people too, need to focus on:

"The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant." 

Doctor Who, 'Vincent and the Doctor'